The problem is that Beryl and Fluxbox are both window managers. They serve the exact same purpose. You can only have one window manager running at a time. With the desktop environments (xfce, gnome, kde), Beryl is just replacing one part of the system (xfwm, metacity, kwin). I hope that made sense.

I think some people here are having a hard time understanding why this is utterly impossible. Beryl is a window manager, Fluxbox is a window manager and you can only have one running at a time. Case closed.

And for your reference, here are some facts about how this works so you can understand why this is impossible.

The window manager is Beryl. A window manager intercepts certain X requests in such a fashion that it can deal with things like window borders and title bars, as well as focus and window stacking. Beryl does all that, but it also does compositing. That means that tells X to force all subwindows of the root window to have their output redirected to image buffers. These buffers are available to Beryl and it uses them to either display the window content on the screen, or to do special effects (such as fade-ins). There cannot be multiple window managers because it would not make sense for X to redirect requests and window buffers to multiple programs. Consequently, X does not allow redirection to be done by multiple programs (on the same window, at least...in this case, the root window. You could have window managers that manage subwindows of some other window, to make, e.g., an MDI interface, but that's rarely done).

Emerald is a special program that just draws window decorations. Beryl allows it somehow to draw the stuff in the window frames, instead of having Beryl do it itself (most window managers draw the frames themselves). The idea is that this allows for easier configurability in window decorations. In any case, Emerald is NOT a window manager. It cannot be used by itself without Beryl. You may be able to run it without errors, but it won't do anything. You need to have Beryl running to make it be useful.

A few other notes:
1) Running beryl --replace tells Beryl to replace the currently running window manager, in this case, Fluxbox. This is not what you want.
2) When somebody saw that you could disable the Beryl manager, that does not mean the Beryl window manager. The Beryl Manager is just that program that sits in the system tray and lets you select window managers and window decorators, as well as other options. The Beryl window manager cannot be disabled because that's all it is: a window manager. It would be like disabling the text-editor component of gedit...

widremann's quote: "Fluxbox is a window manager and you can only have one running at a time. Case closed."

I wouldn't say so: I can imagine people (like me) get confused when other people assume beryl and fluxbox are akind: beryl can't start a new session on its own while fluxbox can!

So what's the trick? Traditionally, window managers are the applications that get called by the graphical login manager, such as xdm or gdm. So beryl isn't one! Formally, window managers are applications that manage window behaviour and that's all. So fluxbox is more than a window manager, since it takes care of bringing your desktop on...

In my opinion, we should state that fluxbox is a minimal desktop environment, so minimal that it embeds a window manager, which makes it incompatible with beryl or any other window manager. I can imagine this situation is here to last...

If you want to have beryl running with a "minimal" desktop environment, you'd better head towards xfce4 (careful! beryl's integration in xfce is not what I would call complete and automated; on my machine I have several issues such as Terminal becoming blank, etc)... and that's about all, as far as I can see.

One could imagine pulling in the mere requirements to start a session from gnome, but I heard metacity (gnome's window manager) still has to be loaded first at session-boottime, for beryl to replace it. So one'll have to pull metacity in anyway.

widremann's quote: "Fluxbox is a window manager and you can only have one running at a time. Case closed."

I wouldn't say so: I can imagine people (like me) get confused when other people assume beryl and fluxbox are akind: beryl can't start a new session on its own while fluxbox can!

So what's the trick? Traditionally, window managers are the applications that get called by the graphical login manager, such as xdm or gdm. So beryl isn't one! Formally, window managers are applications that manage window behaviour and that's all. So fluxbox is more than a window manager, since it takes care of bringing your desktop on...

You are getting confused. Technically, anything can get started by the display manager. There just has to be a session file in some obscure place /etc/X11. To date, people haven't done that for Beryl because it is meant to be used in conjunction with a DE. There is no reason that you can't use Beryl by itself just like you would use Fluxbox...but people don't in general.

More importantly, you are missing the key point about what makes a WM a WM. It does not have to do with whether the display manager starts it or anything like that. A window manager is a program that enables substructure redirection on the root window. This allows it to trap requests to map and unmap windows and other things like that. Fluxbox also listens for mouse events on the root window. This is how you get that nice right click menu. Additionally, Fluxbox creates its own (unmanaged) window at the bottom of the screen: the toolbar. It's still one program. It's still just a window manager. There's nothing else going on.

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In my opinion, we should state that fluxbox is a minimal desktop environment, so minimal that it embeds a window manager, which makes it incompatible with beryl or any other window manager. I can imagine this situation is here to last...

You can state whatever you want, but that doesn't change the reality of things. Both Fluxbox and Beryl are window managers that do more or less the same thing (with respect to window management...Beryl, however, does compositing as well).

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If you want to have beryl running with a "minimal" desktop environment, you'd better head towards xfce4 (careful! beryl's integration in xfce is not what I would call complete and automated; on my machine I have several issues such as Terminal becoming blank, etc)... and that's about all, as far as I can see.

One could imagine pulling in the mere requirements to start a session from gnome, but I heard metacity (gnome's window manager) still has to be loaded first at session-boottime, for beryl to replace it. So one'll have to pull metacity in anyway.

I think you can make it so GNOME doesn't ever start Metacity, but even if it does have to initially, you can automate the process of having Beryl start and this means that you don't have to really worry about Metacity.

Hey peeps, I'm currently running fluxbox and I absolutely love its simplicity and how quickly you can edit menus and hotkeys, but yesterday I watched a great video on Beryl and now I'm tempted to switch over. So here come the questions.

A coworker of mine, avid Ubuntu user, claims that I should be able to run two windows managers at once, that one will compliment the other and so I should be able to install Beryl with Fluxbox, but http://wiki.gentoo-xeffects.org/FAQ states otherwise:

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Can I use compiz or beryl with fluxbox/openbox?

The answer is unfortunately no. Fluxbox and Openbox are both window managers. It is impossible to run multiple window managers. Thus when you start any window manager, it detects if one is currently running. Most by default will exit with an error about it, however some like beryl will replace the currently running window manager.

So can two windows managers work together?

Next question, can I setup gentoo so that when I boot up I get to choose which windows manager will start? If so, how?

No, you cannot use two window managers at the same time. You can choose what window manager to use by using something like GDM or KDM. I wouldn't recommend using Beryl all alone, as it provides no menus, desktops, taskbars, etc... Just window decorations and fancy effects. You'll need something else to go along with it - KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or perhaps Rox.

Hey peeps, I'm currently running fluxbox and I absolutely love its simplicity and how quickly you can edit menus and hotkeys, but yesterday I watched a great video on Beryl and now I'm tempted to switch over. So here come the questions.

A coworker of mine, avid Ubuntu user, claims that I should be able to run two windows managers at once, that one will compliment the other and so I should be able to install Beryl with Fluxbox, but http://wiki.gentoo-xeffects.org/FAQ states otherwise:

Yeah, you put them both, and they fight for each window, the winner puts the tittle bar for that window (it is a joke, of course). Jokes appart, no, that is not possible. Maybe your friend was talking about using an alternative window manager into a desktop environment. For example, you can use beryl, fluxbox or fvwm as replacements for kwin (the window manager of kde). It is also possible to do so with metacity, the default wm of gnome. So, you can run any of these WMs into kde or gnome, or any other desktop. But it is not possible to run two wm's at once. Since they have the same function (regardless of some of them having additional features).

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So can two windows managers work together?

No.

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Next question, can I setup gentoo so that when I boot up I get to choose which windows manager will start? If so, how?

Thx in advance!

Use kdm/gdm/entrance/slim/qingy for that. How to set it up highly depends on what you choose, so, I would first take a look at them all. If you want it to just work, go for kdm or gdm. If you want something framebuffer/console oriented look into qingy, but it has some annoyances and on certain configuration it does not play well.

No, you cannot use two window managers at the same time. You can choose what window manager to use by using something like GDM or KDM. I wouldn't recommend using Beryl all alone, as it provides no menus, desktops, taskbars, etc... Just window decorations and fancy effects. You'll need something else to go along with it - KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or perhaps Rox.

This is an excellent example of what was confusing me, you say that Beryl should not be used alone, I had always understood this to mean that it should be used with another windows manager but it seems like you can install something else to handle menus, desktops, and taskbars, right?_________________-Paul

Use kdm/gdm/entrance/slim/qingy for that. How to set it up highly depends on what you choose, so, I would first take a look at them all. If you want it to just work, go for kdm or gdm. If you want something framebuffer/console oriented look into qingy, but it has some annoyances and on certain configuration it does not play well.

Thanks for the reply...Now that you mention it, I think that I do have gdm installed...at least I've seen it before (I reboot so seldom that I forget what the bootup process looks like ) I'll take a look when I get home._________________-Paul

he might have been referring to the decoration manager, which comes with beryl. Beryl handles alot of the dirty work, and leaves certain things such as drawing the titlebar, minimize, maximize, etc. to a decoration manager. the default is emerald, and they have others like heliodor and aquamarine, which try to emulate kde and gnome.

Yep, but that doesn't change a thing. Beryl is a wm, and, ultimately, it is the one that manages the windows, and it does not leave anyone else do it so while it is running. It does not matter if it has a plugin based architecture, which is ultimately what beryl is about.

PP133 wrote:

broken_chaos wrote:

No, you cannot use two window managers at the same time. You can choose what window manager to use by using something like GDM or KDM. I wouldn't recommend using Beryl all alone, as it provides no menus, desktops, taskbars, etc... Just window decorations and fancy effects. You'll need something else to go along with it - KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or perhaps Rox.

This is an excellent example of what was confusing me, you say that Beryl should not be used alone, I had always understood this to mean that it should be used with another windows manager but it seems like you can install something else to handle menus, desktops, and taskbars, right?

No, reffer to my first post in this thread for more info. It means that beryl can be use within a desktop environment like kde or gnome, and in that case, beryl substitutes the native wm of that desktop.

Beryl can also be used alone, in that case, you are the responsible to provide all the functionality that you might want. Since, as stated above, the functionality of beryl -like most wms- is limited to move and resize windows (besides all the fancy stuff, it is almost useless ). The easiest way to do so it the .xinitrc file. You can add stuff there and it will be launched along with your beryl when you type startx. You can put there panels, pagers, karamba stuff, a terminal...

Why not use beryl as the wm, and separate applications to enable the functionality that you want from fluxbox? x11-misc/fbpanel is a decent replacement for the fluxbox panel (for me at least), anybody know of an application to recreate the right-click menu?

Why not use beryl as the wm, and separate applications to enable the functionality that you want from fluxbox? x11-misc/fbpanel is a decent replacement for the fluxbox panel (for me at least), anybody know of an application to recreate the right-click menu?

-=Marcus

fbpanel includes quickstart icons and a menu so there really isn't any need for a right-click menu as the panel is (usually) always on top.

fbpanel includes quickstart icons and a menu so there really isn't any need for a right-click menu as the panel is (usually) always on top.

That's true, but I prefer being able to right-click anywhere on the desktop to launch applications, since it's a bit quicker and you don't have to be as precise. I also like being able to nest menus within menus; do you know if that's possible with fbpanel, or if there's another application that supports this?

You can build a full menu tree in fbpanel. As for clicking on the desktop, mine is either completely empty or completely covered by a maximized app, so it doesn't really make any difference to me where the menu is located.

No, you cannot use two window managers at the same time. You can choose what window manager to use by using something like GDM or KDM. I wouldn't recommend using Beryl all alone, as it provides no menus, desktops, taskbars, etc... Just window decorations and fancy effects. You'll need something else to go along with it - KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or perhaps Rox.

This is an excellent example of what was confusing me, you say that Beryl should not be used alone, I had always understood this to mean that it should be used with another windows manager but it seems like you can install something else to handle menus, desktops, and taskbars, right?

Maybe what is confusing you is the difference between a desktop environment (KDE, Gnome, Xfce) and a window manager (Beryl, Fluxbox, Fvwm...). A DE is an environment in which applications can implement a consistent graphic interface. A WM is the program responsible for drawing windows on your screen and handling them afterwards. A DE must run with a WM, either one you installed separately or the default one (for instance, the default WM for Gnome is Metacity), but you can run a WM without a DE.

A window decorator is a program specific for Beryl, responsible for drawing the titlebar and borders on windows. As far as I know, in other window managers the manager itself does this.